Movie Reaction: Nightmare Alley

Formula: Shutter Island * Freaks

I remain a little confused about Guillermo del Toro’s reception in Hollywood. When he won Best Picture for The Shape of Water, there was a major “It’s about time” quality to it. Somehow, it was the establishment vote. This confused me, because it’s not like he’s really an Academy director. He has Pan’s Labyrinth as Oscar bait, but otherwise he’s been on the fringes of fanboy cinema with Hellboy, Blade sequels, and Pacific Rim. In 2015, I remember there being buzz about Crimson Peak as a sight-unseen awards contender. Then people saw it and remembered that del Toro doesn’t really play for the Oscar. I expected the same for The Shape of Water, then it somehow won. Because of that, now every movie he makes gets put in the Oscar discussion.

 

Nightmare Alley is a really fun thriller. Del Toro uses his love of unsettling imagery wonderfully. I had to keep reminding myself that he hadn’t made a carnival movie before. It pairs so well with him though, that it seems like “he’s doing another circus movie”. The performances are wonderfully pulled from the filmnoir era with a touch more menace. However, I can’t help but think how with any other director, it wouldn’t be surprising if this really wasn’t in the Oscar discussion. Perhaps some technical awards. Maybe, MAYBE a supporting actress nomination.

 

I’m getting way ahead of myself though. Nightmare Alley is either a book adaptation or a remake of the 1940s movie depending on how you want to look at it. It’s about a drifter (Bradley Cooper) who becomes a carnival worker, uses the tricks her learns to become a psychic act for the wealthy, and falls from grace due to his own hubris. It’s broken into three pretty uneven parts. The best is the first act when Cooper becomes part of the circus. That’s where most of the best supporting stars show up: Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, David Stratharin, and more. Del Toro really captures the oddity and comradery of that world. I love the look and taste of it. The only thing that bothered me about it was that Bradley Cooper looks at least a decade too old to play the character. I think they even call him ‘kid’ at one point. He doesn’t play the character at all like someone who has live enough live to be in his 40s. All of his eagerness and gumption makes a lot more sense for someone much younger.

 

The second act is entirely propped up by Cate Blanchett as a doubter-turned-co-conspirator of Cooper’s. She’s eats up every morsel of every scene she’s in. Not only did she understand the assignment. She wrote the exam and found a typo. I’d be fine if she got one femme fatale role per year for the rest of her life. She’s so much fun. Cooper fits more in his role for this portion of the movie, but his character choices don’t always make sense to me. Then the final act, only a couple scenes, when he’s down on his luck, the story comes full circle. It wasn’t at all satisfying though. It really feels like a bunch of chunks of this movie were cut out. Cooper’s rise in the ranks through the circus feels too fast. Blanchett’s long con doesn’t feel intricate enough. The conclusion to the story of the judge and his wife has little additional context. Then Cooper’s hobo years are rushed through.

 

The ending is odd too. So, a very specific analogy comes to mind. There’s a scene in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones where Obi-Wan is pointing out where the planet Kamino should be to Yoda. The stars and moon formations suggest there should be a planet there but the records don’t show one there. That’s how I feel about this ending. It’s shot and written like a killer ending. I’ve seen enough movies to know how full-circle it should feel. I reflexively even had a wry smile on my face like “I see what you did there, Guillermo”. Yet, it didn’t feel earned enough. It’s like the end was written first, then when the rest of the script didn’t actually point to that ending, they jumped a couple years and hoped we wouldn’t notice.

 

I loved looking at this movie. Visually, I could eat it up. I really loved Blanchett’s performance as well as many of the smaller supporting performances. Those things made this worth the ticket. It’s in that weird middle-space in terms of length though where it needed to be an hour shorter or longer. Either keep it a brisk 90-120 minutes and focus more on the Cate Blanchett part, including the carnival stuff as flavor, or pull an Irishman and make it 3+ hours to capture the full scope of the story. As is, it’s a bloated 2.5 hours that somehow can’t fit in everything it wants to.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend